How precarious has our climate predicament become? Bad enough that four prominent climate scientists --- including one very prominent activist --- are now publicly calling on major environmental advocacy organizations to embrace nuclear power. Yes, nuclear power.
They say nuclear energy must be included as a necessary tool in meeting rising global energy demand while reducing global greenhouse gas emissions if humanity is to have any hope of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and that "continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change."
In a letter, authored by James Hansen (retired NASA scientist, now with Columbia Univ.), Ken Caldeira (Carnegie Institution), Kerry Emanuel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Tom Wigley (National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Adelaide), the four assert that renewable energy sources such as wind and solar cannot be deployed fast enough to meet global energy needs while still avoiding dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate destabilization.
Not everyone agrees, but they've certainly grabbed the attention of environmentalists.
The four scientists ask the nation's largest, most prominent environmental organizations to support development of new nuclear technology because, they say, "there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power"...